Setting the record straight on Gretzky's name
By Stephen Dorman sdorman@theacorn.com

History is littered with mistakes; just ask my mother.

All kidding aside (I love you, Mom), as many of our loyal Acorn readers know by now, the sports department at this newspaper made an epic blunder last week.

Somehow, someway, we managed to misspell Wayne Gretzky's last name not once, but five- yes, FIVE- times in our feature story on Los Angeles Kings broadcaster Bob Miller.

If we were publishing in Canada, I don't know if staff writer Thomas Gase and I would have made it through the weekend. It's a good thing the people of Los Angeles are so much more forgiving than our neighbors to the north.

First off, I'd like to offer an apology to Mr. Gretzky, Mr. Miller, the readers, hockey fans, AEG and, since I may have just insulted them as well, Canada.

Without making a mockery of the situation, I'll admit that repeatedly misspelling The Great One's last name was a complete miscarriage of journalistic justice.

We looked terrible by doing that. We know it, and some of the readers told us about it, too.

The online posting has since been corrected, and a proper version of the story ran in the Simi Valley Acorn last Friday, but still, we feel terrible.

It's not the first time the sports department has made a significant error and, unfortunately, odds are it won't be the last. We'll continue to iron out the kinks and work extra hard to ensure that this type of thing doesn't happen again.

Stephen Dorman is the sports editor for The Acorn Newspapers.